Octopus: Privacy Preserving Peer-to-peer Transactions System with InterPlanetary File System (IPFS)

Blockchain-based decentralized infrastructure is intended to achieve peer-to-peer transactions without relying on centralized/trusted third parties. However, most of the existing blockchain systems suffer from several weaknesses including a certain level of centralization, centralized authority (e.g., data miners), and continuous increase in data storage or data bloating. To overcome these issues, in this paper, we propose Octopus, a truly peer-to-peer transactions system, based on Interplanetary File System (IPFS). Here, transactions between two parties take place via a direct peer-to-peer channel while the proofs of transactions are stored in an IPFS cluster. Unlike traditional blockchain-based systems, Octopus does not require blocks, chains, or miners to provide transaction proofs. Octopus offers several features such as horizontal and vertical scalability, data privacy, and high transaction throughput. Performance results from our prototype confirm these properties.